1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a disk drive used, for example, as a storage medium, and more particularly, to a disk drive having an enhanced shock resistance.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various portable storage mediums have been proposed for storing data in various devices including personal computers (PCs) and digital cameras. Efforts have been made to miniaturize those storage mediums and to increase the capacity of those storage mediums. For example, a new assembly structure of a portable hard disk drive (HDD) conforming to Compact Flash® (SanDisk Corporation), i.e., one of standards for small memory cards, has been proposed.
There has commercially been produced a portable, large-capacity subminiature hard disk drive. This hard disk drive uses a one-inch 1 GB disk and has a weight of only about 16 g. This portable, subminiature hard disk drive is provided, in addition to a magnetic disk (disk) for data storage, a spindle motor for driving the disk for rotation, a read/write head for reading and writing data from and to the disk, and an actuator for moving the read/write head across the disk.
The functional unit including the disk, the spindle motor, the read/write head and the actuator of this subminiature hard disk drive are formed very precisely for miniaturization. Therefore, if the hard disk drive is dropped or is struck against something, it is possible that the subminiature hard disk drive malfunctions. To solve such a problem, the applicant of the present patent application previously proposed a technique for effectively absorbing external shocks by shock absorbing members disposed in corners (four corners) of a disk drive. The technique proposed devises a guide groove for use in mounting the hard disk drive on another device to conform to the Compact Flash standards.